North Plains Systems Wins Frost & Sullivan's 2005 Digital Media Applications Company of the Year Award

North Plains Systems Wins Frost & Sullivan's 2005 Digital Media Applications Company of the Year Award Leading International Analyst and Research Firm Recognizes North Plains for Its Pioneering Technology and Market Share Leadership TORONTO, Jan. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- North Plains Systems Corp., a leading provider of digital asset management (DAM) software and solutions, has been honored with the 2005 Frost & Sullivan Digital Media Applications Market Company of the Year award. Frost & Sullivan is a leading international consulting firm. Its dedicated digital asset management practice has tracked top DAM companies and industry trends for over six years. The award was presented at the Frost & Sullivan 2005 Excellence in Information and Communications Technology Awards Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona "in recognition of North Plains' outstanding achievements in market share growth, product innovation, customer service and loyalty." In 2004, North Plains emerged as the market share leader for the core digital asset management solutions market, and had a "pioneering effect" on the DAM industry, the Frost & Sullivan citation noted. "The success of North Plains can largely be attributed to the strength of their product development and engineering team and to a market growth strategy that has remained singularly focused on digital asset management solution development," added Mukul Kristna, Senior Industry Analyst/Team Leader - Digital Media at Frost & Sullivan. "This is a tremendous achievement. North Plains is one of a handful of companies in this market that is still independently held and consistently profitable." Unlike many of its competitors, North Plains has stayed away from the niche strategy of focusing on a single market vertical, Kristna continued. "North Plains has instead concentrated on developing a powerful application platform and growing a suite of product offerings that allows them to establish market share leadership in several new markets in parallel, including publishing, advertising, prepress and media and entertainment." "We are honored to be recognized by Frost and Sullivan for our company's strong performance in 2004," said Hassan Kotob, CEO of North Plains. "The broad adoption of our TeleScope Application Platform by OEM and business partners along with strong demand for our new TeleScope Media Distribution Portal positions us for continued market and revenue growth in 2005." "With over 50,000 person hours of innovation and product development, North Plains' TeleScope Enterprise(TM) 8.0 is recognized as one of the most feature rich digital asset management applications in the industry," Frost and Sullivan concluded. "Despite an overall industry downturn in the 2004 enterprise software market, North Plains is unique in the DAM industry with a 100 percent customer retention rate and leads the DAM industry in new customer acquisition." About Frost & Sullivan Frost & Sullivan is a global leader in international strategic growth consulting. Frost & Sullivan Awards are presented to companies that demonstrate excellence in their industry, commending the diligence, commitment and innovative business strategies required to advance in the global marketplace. Frost & Sullivan rigorously analyses specific criteria to determine award recipients in a vast variety of industries and landscapes. Founded in 1961, Frost & Sullivan is headquartered in San Jose, California, with offices located worldwide. For further information, visit www.frost.com. About North Plains Systems Founded in 1994, North Plains Systems Corp. is the leading provider of digital asset management software. Today over 400 companies, including Global 2000 corporations, universities, government agencies and media and entertainment companies rely on North Plains' TeleScope(TM) software and its growing suite of media management applications. North Plains' Gemini(TM) workflow and automation solution is the industry's first integrated workflow and collaboration application designed specifically to support production, distribution, approval and e-commerce tasks associated with digital asset management and marketing resource management systems. Customers include Boeing, Harcourt, HarperCollins Publishers, International Monetary Fund, Ogilvy and Mather, Onstream Media, Publicis Groupe, Relizon, SAS, Thomson Learning, Viacom and Warner Bros. For further information please visit www.northplains.com. CONTACT: Skip Ferderber & Associates PR Skip Ferderber 425-315-1724 skip.ferderber@skipf1.com Source: North Plains Systems Corp. CONTACT: Skip Ferderber, +1-425-315-1724, or skip.ferderber@skipf1.com, for North Plains Systems Corp. Web site: http://www.frost.com/ Web site: http://www.northplains.com/ ------- Profile: International Entertainment